Sunday, August 31, 2008

Out Spotlight XXXVIII

Today's Spotlight is a Campus Edition.

Fraternity from the Latin word frater - for brother, meaning brotherhood.

Fraternities have roots back to ancient Greece and Rome, but today are best know for as social organizations for undergraduate at North American colleges and universities.

While the GLTB community has gained acceptance on most college campuses, acceptance in the conservative Greek system has been slower. It is said that 10% of men in traditional U.S. fraternities are gay — but that almost all of them stay in the closet for fear of reprisals from the brothers with whom they share their house and brotherhood. But with the increasingly larger number of teenagers coming out in during high school , they are arriving on college campuses expecting the social environment to accommodate their sexual orientation and that includes a fraternity experience for some. This is creating a new need for another house on fraternity row. The out and proud gay fraternity. "There are now perhaps two dozen gay fraternities around the country — with half of them springing up in just the past five years — at schools such as the University of South Alabama and Kent State University." (Time Magazine)

The 28 men at Gamma Lambda Mu at Florida International University (F.I.U.) are doing that just that and overcoming a lot of barriers. Not only are they trying to establish a openly gay fraternity at a university with predominantly Latino student population, they trying to show their fellow students that they are just another organization on campus, and trying to get a national charter.

Creating openly gay fraternity within a student population born into a culture in which the mystique of machismo still thrives, isn't easy. Mario Campa, co founder of Gamma, a Cuban American, says he has yet to tell his father he is gay. "Many [Anglos] come out with the support of their families," says Gamma Lambda Mu member Jorge Casas, 22. "Hispanic culture is a bit harsher."

"That isolation, Gamma men say, makes having a gay fraternity — a surrogate family and support group in which their sexuality is accepted — even more essential. 'I never had any gay friends growing up,' says a shy F.I.U. student whose family rejected him after he came out. Gamma Lambda Mu, he says, 'is a different and very positive experience for me.'

The Gamma men have taken pains to spell out the precise limits of their bonding: brothers, their bylaws say, may not date one another. They feel chastity rule is necessary, to prove to their schoolmates that gay men can come together in the spirit of service and camaraderie and not for sex. "People think [a gay fraternity] is an orgy," says Campa. "It's not." Gay frats still have to work to "give the impression that we are just another organization" on campus.

"Gamma Lambda Mu is hoping to affiliate with Delta Lambda Phi, the national parent gay fraternity in Washington, which advises its chapters on how to offer peer counseling, AIDS education and access to online resources for gay men. But first Gamma Lambda Mu must win the approval of F.I.U.'S interfraternity council when it votes on the new fraternity's charter application. The school's president, Modesto Maidique, backs the move, as does the head of the interfraternity council."

Co-editor of Out on Fraternity Row, Shane Windmeyer suggests that such groups can serve as a defense against the kind of hate crime that struck Matthew Shepard, the gay University of Wyoming student who was beaten to death off campus in 1998.

That's not to say the Gamma men are not aware of their differences and have a sense of humor about them. The slogan they've printed on its T shirts reads LET'S GIVE 'EM SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT.

40 comments:

Florida Tom said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Florida Tom said...

Jersey Tom said...
Buy your man or woman "Old Spice".
I love Neil Patrick Harris.

When I saw his new commerical I thought I would bust a gut.

Great post apecial. I sure wish I had more avenues to turn to when I was a college kid.

Anonymous said...

Who the heck is apecial?

Special K said...

Location Pictures from PoP set

Special K said...

Can picture Jake riding through the archway on his white charger, running along the city walls and leaping from one roof and wall to the other.

prairiegirl said...

Huh, I can't get anything to come up on that Gaming Site website. I get the homepage to come up, but then nothing comes into picture, other than those 4 people's names in the bottom left corner. I even googled the website and tried to go in that way, but to no avail. Oh well. Maybe later.

I can't believe Gustav is headed for New Orleans. Can you imagine having gone through Katrina and then coming back to rebuild, only to have to leave again, not knowing if your home was going to get hit again? I cannot imagine going through that.

This morning was probably the last Sunday am I can get my walk in before early service. I'm like walking in the total dark for about 1/2 of my walk, thus limiting where I can go. But anyway, what I wanted to share was this. I've been walking at this park (I call it my park) and I wish I could say its name because to me, even its name endears something so special to me. It's where I first started walking about 20 yrs ago. So it's a place I know like the back of my hand. I've had endorphin highs, cried, met some cool people, daydreamed about some new exciting guy, met dogs, been mad about something at work, prayed, rehearsed things in my mind over & over obssessively, whatever. It's a place I can go that I just love & is so beautiful to me, maybe not to a whole of other people, but because I've experienced so much there, it's that special. Anyway, I hope everyone here has a place like that. Somewhere you can go like a personal retreat, a place where it's just you. For you. Where you think & meet or talk to that Higher Power, whoever it may be for you. And you can feel better about just being alive. Or cheered up. Or get a problem solved. Or better yet, if it's a place where you can see an awesome sunset, a predawn, 3 beavers, a deer, an ugly snake, fall leaves, snow, a wild coyote, all of it.
I wish that for everybody here.

Special K said...

Another way to see the pics
PoP Set 1

PoP Set 2

PoP Set 3

PoP Set 4

Pop Set 5

Pop Set 6

destiny said...

I have to admit I've never been a fan of frats and sororities. But it's nice to see gay students having an option if that is what they want.

I really like that drawing at the top of the PoP set link, not sure Jake will look like that though, based on what we've seen so far.

Florida Tom said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Florida Tom said...

Jersey Tom said...
I think that a majority of the folks who left New Orleans after Katrina never returned. I also believe that the part of the city that was destroyed has never been rebuilt and much of what was ruined still lies there.

Special K said...

Heph -
I you see this take care of yourself during Gustav.

Wicked said...

Heph, please let us know you are okay when you can.

Wicked said...

Forgot to say to PG-

Love your post at 11:49. I can almost see the place you describe. We have one like that around here too.

Anonymous said...

Why did Disney push back PoP?

Anonymous said...

GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin's son not hers, but her daughter's

Special K said...

Interesting that the PoP location pictures came through gamer sites this time and not PR sites. Wonder if Bruckheimer grabbed control of the PR and told them to refocus it through the gamers.

Anonymous said...

thosea are drawings-story boards and they've been out for about 1 month.

Special K said...

no those are real pictures of the set

check out the second set of links or hey go to WDW and check it out if you don't believe me .

Anonymous said...

Which PR sites had other pictures of the set? I must've missed those.

Special K said...

They didn't have the location pictures they only had the Jake and Reese ones. The point is that it looks like they leaked the location ones through gamer sites this time.

Anonymous said...

Location - The Middle of Nowhere.

Anonymous said...

i was going by the most recent link "why did Ddsney push back pop?" that had storyboard of the locations-bldgs, was on a gamer site, and talked about pr in it and then special k's comment right afterwards. sorry my fault, i guess i should know what posts people are commenting on.

Anonymous said...

Kevin Spacey was very naughty

Special K said...

So sorry old stuff - my bad!

destiny said...

(((Heph))) hope you're okay too.

I can't wait to see how Spacey's publicist explains this one. Talk about someone who should really just come out. I guess he thought he'd be safe from photos in a place like that.

Listening the the music just now I had this really funny vision of Austin in character as JFC trying to imitate people dancing to this song, tentatively waiving his arms in the air with that JFC look on his face.

Anonymous said...

Kevin Spacey- there's a guy behind him or he's sitting in someone's lap. KS is in a striped shirt and theres a white shirt & arm right behind his. If he was siting in a guys lap that'll aslo be interest8ing to hear how they get out of this one.

Anonymous said...

I kinda feel sorry for Kevin Spacey. He's a great actor. I wonder how this will affect his career. He always insisted that he was straight.

What if some pictures of Jake and Austin appeared on the internet. Could you imagine, the damage control.

Wicked said...

I can't wait to see how Spacey's publicist explains this one.

He was doing research for a role.

prairiegirl said...

Jannie, I am hearing you on both your points. I like Kevin Spacey, saw him in American Beauty and The Ref. I don't know anything about his personal life, only recently having read online rumblings about his sexuality. I don't know what the best route is for these actors/actresses. Do they live a lie/hide their real life/ and if they do will they be "rewarded" with the movie roles that would otherwise be denied them? Or do they live honestly/have peace of mind/but would they "pay" for their decision and not get the roles that they want in the career that they love? I wish it was not such a big deal.

If a current picture of J & A were to get leaked onto the internet, it would undo everything that Reeke has been trying to accomplish. And it seems like Jake has done a complete 180 and is not putting himself in a position to be seen in the company of any male, be it a friend, a relative, the mailman, or whoever.

Oh! I saw The Dark Knight today. Although I'm not a fan of violence in movies/TV, the fast action and Heath's Joker made this movie go fast for a 2 1/2 hr movie. For me, anyway. Christian Bale is great at the dark, brooding, sexy guy role and Heath was everything I'd heard & read about. I just keep getting more & more into that guy with every movie I see and everything I read about him.

Anonymous said...

Join the Avon Foundation and the first ever Honorary Chairperson, recently engaged actress Reese Witherspoon, in supporting the annual Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in LA.

Thousands of women will spend two days travelling up to 39 miles to raise funds for the charities and the Avon Foundation, who aid disadvantaged women and men get the cancer screening, support, and treatment they need.

Help the Avon Foundation make a difference at the LA Walk for Breast Cancer on September 13 and 14.


link

Confused by their use of the word "engaged." Wonder if she'll do a little more at this walk than she did in DC?

prairiegirl said...

I have been remiss in thanking you, Special, for providing those other links. Those worked fine. It really looks different - I look forward to seeing it. I hope they get in shots of some of the beautiful palaces & mosaic tiles that I saw in so many pictures.

Florida Tom said...

I hope all goes well Heph. Hopefully you are somewhere safe by now.

Is Joker from New Orleans also? If so take care Joker.

Anonymous said...

Just returned home from a weekend spent at DragonCon, the largest SciFi/fantasy/comics/gaming convention on the east coast. Over 25,000 people in attendance from all walks of life, all ages, a huge melting pot of people all gathered to celebrate their inner - and outer - geek. Fabulous time!

What I found so refeshing, and the reason I'm sharing this here, is that the con schedule of events aimed at one of the most sought after demographics by advertisers and film companies alike, included Torchwood panels (each appearance by Gareth David-Lloyed and James Marsters SRO) and positive portrayal of homosexuality in the Whoniverse discussions, the premier of the fan made, studio approved Star Trek movie based on an old script of David Gerrold's for TOS that had at its core a gay man and his partner, a GLBT rainbow party, George Takei and his fiance, Brad Altman, signing autographs and gathering up wedding presents and well-wishes constantly, Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long blog and NPH a smash cult hit, men dressed as women, women dressed as men, men and women dressed as...not quite sure what, and literally dozens of other examples of the wide spectrum of people embracing, accepting and celebrating Gay and Lesbians as just a normal aspect of the fandom, of fans, of life.

And this was in Atlanta, Georgia!

The whole thing actually made me a little teary-eyed, and more than a little bit hopeful for the future.

Why, oh, WHY, can't the studio execs see that homosexuality just isn't the kiss of death they seem to think? The public, the ones that acutally buy the tickets, buy the merchandise and everything else are beyond ready and willing to accept whom and what ever regardless - as long as it's a good product. and doesn't insult their intelligence.

Oh, and while John Barrowman is sex on a stick, GDL is closing fast!

Anonymous said...

First time at DragonCon?

Anonymous said...

Jodie pregnant?

Anonymous said...

I guess the next news item will be
that Jake and Reese are secretly
married and expecting a baby! This
is getting really ridiculous. Why
not be honest from the beginning?
Why couldn't Jake and Reese be
honest during the time of Rendition and say they were dating? It really does get tiresome all the time!
My prayers are with the people
of Louisiana and Texas and the
whole Gulf Coast.

Anonymous said...

Why couldn't Jake and Reese be honest during the time of Rendition and say they were dating?

Because playing games is more interesting (brings more PR) and because they don't date.

Anonymous said...

First time at DragonCon?


Nope. Con goer from way back.

Admittedly, I haven't been to DragonCon in several years, but the last time I was in Atlanta, there was nary an official mention of GLBT, not on the panels, not by the guests, nothing. Of course, cross dressing was - and always has been - big amongst the fans.

Whether it's true or not, going to attribute the new openess to Russell T. Davies with his Whoniverse, and the amazing John Barrowman, who you'd have to be dead for three months not to adore.

Anonymous said...

...the amazing John Barrowman, who you'd have to be dead for three months not to adore

LOL!

Anonymous said...

If you search on Youtube there's a new John Barrowman documentary called The Making of Me. This is an extract with his very hot husband:

John and Scott